’d never heard of Five Man Electrical Band before moving to Ottawa, but its legendary reputation intrigued me and Its impending performance at Super Ex would be a rare opportunity to catch them live. So there I was, surrounded by the neon lights of carnival rides, the microphone feedback of chatty prize tents and all the fenced-off alleyways of the parking lot sprawl. And I was lost.

For some, fashion is a dirty word, evoking self-important couturiers, spinning wears that cost more than our cars. There are those who regard Vogue with the same distain as Hustler. I once hurled an InStyle magazine into the trash when a guy I liked happened to walk by, lest he think I was a clothes whore. With age comes self-acceptance.

After four years at a school for writers, actors, musicians, visual artists and dancers, I like to think that I know a thing or two about the creation of art. I have seen, firsthand, optimism and frustration, ideas discarded and re-adopted and the brilliance of unexpected inspiration. I’ve experienced them too. But as I step up to the door of H’Art of Ottawa, I’m convinced I do not know art quite the way it exists here.

John Paizs’ Crime Wave is a film that inspires great devotion among its fans. In some ways it’s the quintessential Canadian cult film. Shot on 16mm with rented equipment on a shoestring budget, using a (really) small crew on weekends over the course of two years, it debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1985 and had a theatrical release in 1986 in just one city: Winnipeg – the place it was filmed

Mat Dubé has poked his nose into a lot of creative expressions. Some have come easily, and have been fun; others have been a slog that drains one’s spirit. He battles two dilemmas: that he tends to be very good at any art he tries; and that indecision keeps him bouncing from one to another. “I know the rules of how to make money (from art). I just don’t know if I want to (follow them),” is his conclusion, so far.

In good times – those perceived as prosperous, secure, tolerant and flexible – artistic creation is expected, and embraced. In bad times, it isn’t expected. But this is when it’s most needed by cultures to help spread a little joy around. Relational Art tells us we share something with the person standing next to us.

In these 20 questions, talented singer/songwriter Jill Zmud reveals an interest in Buffy’s Spike, a passion for chocolate and her prized possession that came from an uncle.

Right out of high school, Peggy White started writing songs and spent the next 12 years on the road with country-music bands. Throughout the 1990s, she was a successful travel agent in Ottawa while raising two sons. Recently she’s taught herself Web design to generate income. Throughout, she’s never stopped writing songs and playing the guitar. Then why, at 50, is she still having trouble accepting that a career in music is possible?

Chris Forrest has spent his entire life searching for “Oh Wow” moments, where one has to bet everything or admit that the demons have won. They are points of pure clarity, and their lessons can change your life in a heartbeat. Perhaps that’s why Forrest has chosen Cool Hand Luke and Leonard Cohen as role models and, more recently in his fiction, created characters with nothing left to lose.

Wayne Current has dipped into Ottawa theatre for years, profiling and reviewing much of what he sees in his blog Many Faces of Wayne. He says he’s amazed at how good Ottawa theatre is, and has decided to jump off the high diving board in mid-June when he produces Prisoner’s Dilemma, written by Sterling Lynch, for the Fringe Festival

Christine Klippenstein is best known for her award-winning poetry. But as literature holds her in its thrall, she’s at a point in a young life when questions about what and why this is happening are creating a highly poignant roadmap for the future.

Ten minutes spent circling rain-soaked pavement, counting the peepholes of the Queensway’s rusted barrier, and I still couldn’t face the entrance again. Nothing about Fisher Park Public School, an unassuming elementary school in the heart of West Ottawa, could be construed as threatening, yet those thin lockers of its inner halls had given me a fright, calling to mind near-identical closet-spaces I’d once leaned against in high school, scribbling verses with my head down, shoulders rounded.

The world turns, governments fall and life is never the same again. Some of history’s most enduring creations come out of the instability people feel in transition. Instability drove Chikonzero “Chiko” Chazunguza to three continents, accompanied by an artistic voice that grew from utopian to political. In Ottawa, the Zimbabwean is trying to make sense of what that voice is now trying to say.

It started with a guinea pig at age eight, and ever since, Christine Klippenstein has been finding her muse in the strangest of places. By 13 she was winning prizes for her prose and poetry, and recently was awarded Bywords top spot for high-school poets with A Cup of Tea. As always, her muse – Stephanie Bolster’s Two Bowls of Milk – is discovery, this time Bolster’s technique of negation.

Rick Taylor answers Status Quo’s 20 questions before heading out on a whirl of teaching writing workshops.

Modern belly dance is predominantly cabaret style, the vision of a beauty in chiffon and sequins, swirling and shimmying to rhythms of the doumbek and tinkling of zills. From the development of American Tribal Style [ATS] of Fat Chance Belly Dance to the explosion of diverse veil work and expanding prop integration, and the re-examination of its spiritual side and empowerment of women, belly dance is in constant flux.

Too many of us involved in the arts believe there’s some kind of irresolvable tension between successful art and successful marketing. Because this misunderstanding harms artists the most, I want to dispel the notion that successful marketing and successful art are somehow intrinsically opposed. To do so, I will make the case that marketers and artists employ a variety of means to achieve the very same end. On my view, all of us hope to create community.

We understand that weakness makes us human, yet the culture we embrace laughs at imperfection. It’s this sort of dissonance/irony Tobin Siebers loves to probe as a professor of English Literature at the University of Michigan.The following is from an interview with Siebers.

Francois Levesque gets right to the point with Dietrich Rosteck in Apartment 613 interview.

After years of effort, Christine Tremblay prepares (in 2009) to move into the Shenkman Arts Centre in Orleans.

For someone who at age 35 played in backyard mud with Marxists and by 40 had three pieces of art in the National Gallery of Canada’s permanent collection, Russell Yuristy‘s lifelong experimentation with media is just part of the pedigree. He’s worked with pencil, paint, clay and metal, and in recent years has moved into woodcut printing. With most, he went as far as his idea of artistic balance would allow. “I’m always gambling. In art, everything is up for grabs.” But he never strayed far from the themes of his youth.

Genevieve Thauvette comes out from behind her camera to answer the 20 questions Marcel Proust thought would define who a person really is.

Ingo Hessel’s sense of aesthetics started young and erupted when he made a connection with Inuit art while working with Statistics Canada. But it was in Japan that he was able to tie together his basket of intellectual and artistic threads. He’s still juggling several jobs and is working hard to find time to get back to his own sculpture studio.

Kevin Hersak remembers details of experiencing music with his father like most people remember smells. His reminiscence of how he came to love certain songs is sometimes funny, sometimes sad, but completely passionate.